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image credit: Matt Baume
This man us standing close enough to the bus stop that everyone -- including some kids -- cam smell him. If he reeked of garbage or beets, it would be considered rude, and he'd be embarrassed to know that everyone is edging away so they don't have to breathe him in. Smokers? Not so much.
Should we give smokers a wider latitude than other notorious bus stop stinkers? Is it enough for smokers to stand far away, or should they also endeavor to stand upwind? Should Muni install weathervanes on shelters?
Yes, we know there are official rules about smoking in public, but those rules are benign. What's the etiquette here, folks?
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Lighting a cigarette makes the bus come. You should thank that man!
This is true.
Yep, works every time...
Obviously, if the smoking annoys you, you should move to a non-smoking bus stop.
I don't have any qualms with smokers outdoors as long as they don't do that thing where they tilt their head and blow smoke so it doesn't end up in their face, but instead ends up in mine.
On the Muni maps on the shelters, it says that it's against health code to smoke in a bus shelter.
But... people disobey this frequently. Police got other things to handle.
and this man is not smoking in a bus shelter.
Ideas about police handling smoking health code violations at bus stops, "official rules", weathervanes?
The etiquette here for people is "Get over it."
A "wider latitude"? Do you regularly approach people who smell like beets and tell them to move? Seriously, of all the screwed up people I have to deal with on the Muni, smokers are the least obnoxious. Find a new cause, buddy.
im being dead serious, here: your screen name is genius.
Has it really come to this? That guy appears at least 15 feet from the bus shelter on the side of a major road. He is harming nobody.
If it's smell, complain away. If it's health you are concerned about, there's a million more dangerous particulates from the cars whizzing by you. I wish we could make driving like smoking and tell them to drive at least 25 feet from anyone else...
but if I remember correctly, freedom from unpleasant smells is a constitutional right!
My favorite part of the post is the bit about how even some kids can smell him. I audibly gasped. Didn't you?
As a smoker..the rule of the thumb is: if kids or pregger ladies around, get far, far far away (or even pass for that one time). Everyone else, f(*& off.
Thank you for being conscientious (seriously) - but I'm quite sure you're in the minority. You'll get the Ideal Smoker award if you also refrain from flicking your butts.
Thank you for being conscientious (seriously)
Everyone else, f(*& off.
Yeah, sounds like a great guy.
When I was a little kid and didn't want to shower, my mom would try to persuade me by saying, "if you smell bad, then everyone will think you're dirty, or at least rude." At the time, my response to that was, "so what?"
It's an attitude that I outgrew.
This reminds me of the time I was on the 49 heading southbound and it was packed to the gills on a warm autumn day. I was getting ready to hop off near the Chevron station and some skanky homeless tard let loose with the worst fart I have ever smelled.
I nearly tossed my lunch on his back it was so horrible.
He emptied out the entire back of the bus at that stop.
Second hand smoke isn't just an annoyance, it's harmful.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8267523.stm
oh blah blah blah
=v= Oh, don't worry, second-hand smoke is somehow magically un-unhealthy when produced outdoors. Why else would people proclaim "get over it" and "f(*& off" with such authority?
If I were still a smoker and someone gave me hell for smoking at an apparent twelve foot distance from a bus stop, I'd flick my butt at them. And I'd miss. Because I'm TWELVE FEET AWAY. If the guy were any further away, he'd be annoying some other self righteous person at another bus stop. And anyone who thinks otherwise should be exiled to live in NYC for six months where no one gives a damn about hurting your feelings. My point is, at least this guy is trying.
"If you want to argue for parkwide smoking bans based on asthma or on an analogy to noise pollution, go ahead and make that case. But let's not cloud that debate by invoking the general harm of secondhand smoke. Studies of secondhand smoke have indeed moved outdoors. Their findings support restrictions on lighting up within a few feet of other people. But they don't warrant more than that."
http://www.slate.com/id/2228681?obref=obinsite
Rules for smokers should be equal to rules for people who fart for six continuous minutes (i.e. GTFO).
It's 2009, we're in the first world, people should not smell bad any more.
Having designated a smoking section is like having a peeing section in the pool.
As long as I don't end up smelling like cigarettes, I'll generally let it pass.
dear rest of the u.s. --
you know why public nudity and pot smoking are good and cigarette smoking is bad?
because we're better than you.
sincerely,
san francisco
Smoke away. Just stay downwind from me so it's not blowing into my face.
Complain away, just stay upwind so my smoke doesn't get in your face.
This whole thread is making me want a cigarette REAL BAD.
Was out with a coworker on a (large) smoking-legal patio and a woman told us to move away from her because she could smell the smoke. He was smoking and I wasn't but this still pissed me off to no end.
Why on earth did she think that was okay to say? She could have moved her own ass just as easy. Social conventions prevented me from taking his cig and stubbing it out on her forehead.
that is really the most insufferable part, "i can smell it."
But isn't it embarrassing to smell bad? If you had rotten BO, you'd understand that people would want you to leave, right?
can i ask people to leave who are wearing sandalwood? or patchouli? or any other smell that I find personally disagreeable?
what about the smell coming from your automobile, can you stop driving that?
and your kid stinks (not as much as your dog, but still) can that thing please move away from me?
Oh and I don't like the smell of that cuisine, can it either install filters to remove the aroma or go out of business?
So, your position is that everything smells as bad as -- or worse than -- cigarettes, so smokers should feel comfortable introducing us to their odor?
I would say, yeah, it's probably fine to nicely ask someone with too much scent to move away. But that's different, isn't it? People who wear perfume -- even too much of it -- think that they smell good. Smokers can't possibly be laboring under such a misapprehension. Smokers don't think that nonsmokers like how they smell, do they?
And I think you'd have trouble finding a kid or dog who smells as pungent and at so great a distance as cigarette smoke. The guy in the photo was several feet away but he was still filling the bus stop with his objectionable aroma. If an idling car or restaurant was doing the same, that would be considered impolite, wouldn't it?
I mean, isn't it inconsiderate to impose your emissions upon people, whether it be from a car or child or your mouth?
of course most of those arguments are ridiculous - they were meant to be, but i think the problem lies in defining what "as pungent" means in this sentence:
And I think you'd have trouble finding a kid or dog who smells as pungent and at so great a distance as cigarette smoke.
i don't know what smells "worse" and to whom? and besides we don't have any legal protection from odor.
before I was a smoker i rather enjoyed the smell of cigarette smoke. i also like (or don't mind) the smell of weed burning. I hate the smell of sage burning -(but we can't ask Santa Cruz to leave can we?)
It's true, there is no legal protection against the imposition of smells. The only protection on which we can hope to rely is that of consideration.
=v= It's revealing how swiftly some people dodge the well-documented damaging effects of second-hand smoke by bringing up things like sandalwood, patchouli, B.O., and farting. It's as if they're desperately trying to avoid paying even one second of attention to the real issue, probably because they know they're in the wrong.
Unfortunately, all the Tobacco Lobby scientists have taken new jobs in the Global Warming Denialist industry, so you guys are kind of on your own this time around.
People who wear detectable amounts of any fragrance should be smacked with a trout.
And if it is patchouli they should be beaten repeatedly until they find a microbus to take them to the next Grateful Dead show.
ugh, i'm not a smoker and i HATE the smell, but i get annoyed by people who are on a "smoking" patio and get made at the people who are smoking.
yeah, i makes it hard sometimes to enjoy the nice, fresh breeze but it's tolerable because there IS a breeze.
i'm in a good mood right now - this comment would be totally different if i wasn't. :)
Downwind. You stand downwind, Brock.
I was in a cab yesterday and the cabbie told me about a new-ish ordinance that no one, not even the cabbies when there are no passengers, can smoke in cabs. Apparently, it's a pretty hefty fine.
I started to get flustered and go off about choice and freedom and all that until he more or less cut me off with, "that's SF politics". Smokers aren't going to start staging demonstrations, so we just have to get used to laws like this. Hmph.
Smokers aren't going to start staging demonstrations
Actually, they did, but they all stepped out for a minute when you came by.
Just don't glare at me as I cough and wheeze. Or when I take out and shake my albuterol inhaler. Cigs are one of my greatest irritatent. If at a bus stop or other place outside, I will move away from a smoker. But what causes the biggest problem for me is when someone who was just smoking sit near me on a bus. I have had smokers complain if I cough, wheeze, pull out inhaler or move. Sigh....
It is now perfectly acceptable for me to flick my cigarette butts all over the city. I used to field strip them and throw them in a trash can, but thanks to Gav I no longer need to burn my fingers. Now my tax dollars more than pay for any necessary clean up and my fingers don't smell quite as bad. What a great city we live in. The more restrictions placed on me as a smoker make me feel quite justified, only where it's legal mind,in blowing my smoke squarely in your holier-than-thou vicinity.
What about the smoke from the bacon-wrapped hot dog stands?
*ANYTHING* burning causes cancer or asthma. No worse than cigarette smoke. The reason people get more cancer from cigarettes is that they're intentionally sucking the concentrated smoke directly into their lungs.
A smoker 12 feet away outside is not gonna hurt you.
He clearly should have climbed to the top of that tree before lighting up. The proper etiquette? It's to whine on your blog about a man standing a good distance away from you if that man is smoking.
I cannot believe this thread.
You precious, precious people.
i'll stay downwind if it's marijuana, upwind if it's that carcinogenic feces some people continue to consume
Yeah, sure, cigarettes are stanky.
But I'd rather smell cigarettes than, say, the melange of feces+urine+Thunderbird+colostomy bag contents+antibiotic resistant everything+never been washed critter+necrotizing fasciitis+that's not chocolate that's doo-doo+filth+garbage that some riders radiate.
Plus, idle hands are the devil's something or other.
No complains about smokers.